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Hello and welcome to The WDW Radio Show – Your Walt Disney World Information Station. I am your host, Lou Mongello, and this is show #177 for the week of July 4, 2010. Happy Independence Day to everyone celebrating in the US and those who may be stationed or living overseas. I proudly dedicate this show to everyone who has ever sacrificed to ensure our continuing freedoms.

Captain EO, starring Michael Jackson, has returned to its home in Walt Disney World, and I had a chance to see the show just days before it opened to the public. This week, weâ€™ll discuss its return, and talk with Disney executives, Imagineers and Guests and get their reactions as well. Weâ€™ll look at how the show compares to its 1986 debut and its possible future in Epcot.

Iâ€™ll open up the inbox again this week and answer more of your listener emails. Topics include the Nightmare Before Christmas Haunted Mansion overlay, some additional Haunted Mansion trivia, dining choices in Walt Disney World, Winter Summerland, Port Orleans, ticket upgrade options, comparing the Magic Kingdom resorts, and much more.

I’ll play more of your voicemails and have a few announcements at the end of the show, so sit back, relax, and enjoy this week’s episode of the WDW Radio Show.

You can email the show at lou@wdwradio.com or call the voicemail TOLL FREE at 888-703-2171.

Thanks for listening! Be sure to tune in next week!

INFORMATION AND LINKS FROM THIS WEEK’S SHOW

Listen to our Captain EO Wayback Machine look at its history, trivia and stories on WDW Radio Show #126

My husband and I were able to attend the passholder preview for Eo this past Thursday, and like you, we were buoyed up on the wonderful vibe in the theater. People cheered, clapped, and generally threw themselves into the trip back to the 1980s. Perhaps I’m being too idealistic, but I think that part of the reason the show “works” right now is a form of nostalgia that goes a little deeper than the memory of Jackson. For a moment, as we charged out of the theater into the drizzling Florida twilight, the audience was able to reclaim the belief that we really were there to change our world and that the future really was brighter rather than a place of natural resource depletion and doom. I think that the attraction’s whimsy and its idealistic hope may offer a needed respite from “reality,” and I hope crowds respond to that as well as our preview group did!

I was able to see Captain EO on Thursday night. It was my first time experiencing the attraction.

The most important thing I took from that night was this: we have come SO FAR since Captain EO… yes, in special effects… but more profoundly, in the quality of attraction that Disney delivers. Specifically, how every element in an attraction adds to the story that is being told.

That is to say, the preshow for EO felt out of place.

This is exciting, for this reason: If I am surprised by how far we’ve come in the last 24 years, imagine what level of immersive storytelling the future holds. Can’t wait!

I grew up watching the Jackson 5 Saturday morning cartoons and listening to them on my mom’s eight track tape player. So, my appreciation of Michael’s talents go way back. He has always had the ability to make people feel good with his extraordinary talents. Was able to make it down last year to see Captain EO one last time – really enjoyed that! I do however, believe it’s time to move on and bring the attraction up into the 21st century. I’m sure the Disney imagineers will come up with something spectacular to fill the 3D theater. Thank you for the opportunity to see the Captain one more time, Disney. Thanks again for another terrific show, Lou!!!

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